We are living proof that we can still fix education, AI, and America.

20-years proven solutions for fixing our colleges via cutting edge free speech, digital civics, AI alignment, and disinformation curricula.

Already test drove it w/Big 10, a Bible College, a Fortune 500, a Netflix doc, Bar Associations, and maybe the "wokest" school in America.

And have the scars and title belts to prove it.

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FIXING EDUCATION, AI, DISINFORMATION, and POST-DIGITAL AMERICA

The proven solutions -- and Black Mirror meets Dead Poet's Society survival story -- every educator (and probably Congress) needs to hear.

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Thank you to our partners -- and members of the press -- for realizing how bananas this story is.

CBS: MINNEAPOLIS
FORBES
NBC: MINNEAPOLIS
(SACREMENTO, TOLEDO, HOUSTON)
HUMAN LAWYER
OMAHA-WORLD HERALD
PIONEER PRESS
NEBRASKA PUBLIC TELEVISION
NEXT GENERATION POLITICS
AI AND YOU
OUR BLACK NEWS

PRESS and MEDIA

I'VE LAUNCHED THREE START UPS

To prove my teams of students and top world experts could fix higher ed, AI, and post-digital
America.

And the last crew almost pulled it off, except we live in Minneapolis, some jerk tried to shoot me, and all hell broke loose.

THE FIRST AMENDMENT and HIGHER ED REFORM

I started an internationally-recognized free speech art collective at one of the "wokest" schools in the country

and then became an "echo chamber diversity hire"
at a Bible College to teach kids on the other side of reality.

PR and FIXING OUR POLITICAL DIVISIONS

I was a speechwriter for Time's University President of the Year.

And, as a grad student,
co-built the first nationally scalable multi-campus disinformation fighting platform
(w/ a Fortune 500
in 2007).

AI I DISINFORMATION I PRIVACY I FREE SPEECH

I have an interdisciplinary phd (and law degree) in putting out the dumpster fire collision of

technology,
Constitutional law,
American democracy, postmodernism,
and post-AI
politics and education.

REAL TALK Y'ALL

We have weeks to fix higher ed

or we'll lose it (and the 21st century) forever.

And, brother, our solutions are Space freakin' Mountain.

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STYLIN' and PROFILIN'
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HOW TO WIN THE 21ST CENTURY

EXPERTISE and SERVICES

I spent 20 years combining and scaling the best ideas from:

Big 10 schools, small colleges ("woke," MAGA-y, and Bible),
a Fortune 500, and two nationally-recognized university presidents

(including Time's "President of the Year" during a $1B campaign).


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WORKSHOPS / AUDITS / I SHOULD HAVE BEEN A GAME SHOW HOST

TRAINING / SPEAKING / CONSULTING

Solve the free speech vs DEI mess
(and false flags) for everyone.

Bring back free speech

and respect for all students and faculty.

Catalyze and curate constructive campus dialogues

across cultural, religious, and political divides.

Build revenue generating student/faculty run
think tanks, arts advocacy organizations, and internal/external communications.

Revolutionize assessment

to empower and protect students and faculty.

AWARD WINNING / STUDENT CV LINE CREATING / WORLD-CHANGING

EXPERIENTIAL and INTERACTIVE LEARNING

Socratic, experiential, entrepreneurial, scalable.


  • 100% NON-IDEOLOGICAL, INTERDISCPILINARY,
    and INTERCONNECTED
    CURRICULA

    Indoctrinating kids is gross: So I let them control the conversation / what we study depending on what is on the news that day.


    THAT'S THE JOB.

  • MY STUDENTS BUILD INTERNATIONALLY RECOGNIZED and AWARD WINNING


    THINK TANKS,
    NEWS OUTLETS,
    ART COLLECTIVES,
    ADVOCACY/PR ORGS,
    ED TECH START UPS, PODCASTS,
    INTERACTIVE TEXTBOOKS,
    UNPRECEDENTED POLITICAL/CIVIC COALITIONS,
    AND CIVILIAN INFORMATION DEFENSE SYSTEMS

    AS HOMEWORK.

  • SOCRATIC and EXPERIENTIAL: I'VE NEVER TAUGHT THE SAME CLASS TWICE


    Anyone still using a static syllabus -- or teaching the same thing more than once -- is a goner.

    #AIPROOF

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PLUG and PLAY STUDENT RUN THINK TANKS and ORGS

CONNECTING CLASSROOMS and COMMUNITIES ACROSS THE DIGITAL DIVIDE (+ ACTUAL IMPACTS/ROI)

CURRICULUM (K-COLLEGE, GRAD, AND LAW)
EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING PLATFORMS / PLUG

Empowering the next generation of tech and civic leaders
from both sides of the aisle.

Fueled by 20 years of proven solutions to fix education
in the post-AI, DEI, 2025 world.

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    THE INSTITUTE FOR DIGITAL HUMANITY

    CO-FOUNDER/EXEC. DIRECTOR
    2018-PRESENT

    Started when I became an echo-chamber diversity hIre at a Bible college to prove my methods could get conservatives, liberals, Christians, Muslims, and Jewish-Americans to work together on sane and pragmatic technology solutions.

    IDH 

  • INSTITUTE FOR AESTHETIC ADVOCACY

    CO-FOUNDER / CREATIVE DIRECTOR
    2017-PRESENT

    Co-Founded Twin Cities' free speech and digital civil rights art collective: Internationally recognized exhibitions, installations, and cutting-edge civic engagement frameworks/events.

    IAA 

  • COMMONPLACE: A CITIZEN'S GUIDE TO PERSUASION (FOR AN AGE THAT DESPERATELY NEEDS ONE)

    CO-FOUNDER / CO-DESIGNER
    MCGRAW-HILL and OHIO STATE UNIV
    2007-2012

    The Commonplace project – a partnership between McGraw-Hill and Ohio State’s First Year Writing Program – networked approximately 15,000 students across 5 campuses and 100s of classrooms, generating $750k in revenue.


    COMMONPLACE 
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idh victories

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iaa victories

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Sale Sold out
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MY STUDENTS' CVs

OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY / NORTH CENTRAL UNIVERSITY / HAMLINE UNIVERSITY / CREIGHTON UNIVERSITY / INDIANA UNIVERSITY

  Victories by subject by Aaron McKain

PRESS / MEDIA APPEARANCES

“After Facebook Scandal, Students Take On Issues of Big Tech.” 
NBC KARE-11 Evening News.  
Minneapolis: 7 October 2021. 

Rebroadcast On:
NBC WTOL: Toledo
NBC KHOU: Houston
NBC KXTV: Sacramento.

“Why Isn’t There Social Media Forgiveness?”
NBC KARE-11 Breaking the News. 
Minneapolis: 13 September 2018.

PUBLICATIONS

“Principles of Digital Law and Ethics.” 
Competition Policy International: Special Issue on Machine Learning. 
February 2023
With Thomas Freeman and Samson Hall.

“Principles of Digital Law and Ethics.” 
Competition Policy International: Special Issue on Machine Learning. 
With Thomas Freeman and Samson Hall.
February 2023

“A Primer on Digital and Data Science Ethics."
Nebraska Lawyer. 
With Thomas Freeman and Samson Hall.  
Sept/Oct 2022.  

“WandaVision Exposes the Reality that Our Filter Bubbles Control Our Minds.”
Hannah Grubbs.
Popular Culture and Theology. 
September 22, 2021.

“WandaVision: An Intersectional Perspective on the Erasure of Jewish Identity.” 
Joe Cobb. 
Blerg.com. 
April 18th, 2021.  

“The Art of EMF Science: Aesthetics, Ethics, and Post-Digital Health Advocacy.” 
PostHuman: New Media Art 2020. 
With Steven Pederson and the Institute for Aesthetic Advocacy.
CICA Press:
Seoul, South Korea: 2020.

“The Legal Implications of Algorithmic Decision-Making.” 
Nebraska Lawyer.
With Thomas Freeman and
Samson Hall.
May/June 2020.  

“In Two Voices.” 
Amanda Aherns, Aaron McKain, and Stephen Pederson. 
Intima: Journal of Narrative Medicine.
August 2020. 

“The Legal Implications of Algorithmic Decision Making.” 
Thomas Freeman, Aaron McKain, and Samson Hall. 
Nebraska Lawyer.
May/June 2020.

“Post-Digital Free Speech.” 
Curated Cross-Cultural Zine Exchange. 
With Allison Baker and the Institute for Aesthetic Advocacy.
Hennepin County Library.
(Permanent Collection).  September 2019.

“I Want to Party With You Cowboy: Stephen Colbert and Campaign 2016’s Aesthetic Logic of Truthiness.”
With Thomas Lawson.
In Julie Webber-Collins, Ed. 
The Joke is On Us: Political Comedy in (Late) Neoliberal Times.
Lexington Press, 2019. 

INVITED ACADEMIC TALKS

Invited Academic Conferences
and Presentations:

“Redefining Digital Literary: Algorithms and You.” 
SXSW EDU. 
With Thomas Freeman, Ayin Morales-Monge, and Shea Sullivan. 
March 2022.

Winner of online voting competition to present.

“Privacy 3.0: Forgiveness and Student Data After Mahoney.”
 International Vincentian Business Ethics Conference.
  Chicago: DePaul University. 
With Thomas Freeman, Simon Truatman, and Amanda
Aherns. 
October 2021.

“Algorithmic Bias: How Cross Functional Networks Can Fight Digitized Discrimination.”
Heider Business Symposium.
With Dr. Aaron McKain, Thomas Freeman, Elizabeth Otto, Ayin Monge, and Julius Hernandez.
Creighton University. 
Omaha, NE.
  October 2021. 

“Digital Ethics: What’s Next?”
  OSTROM Workshop. 
Indiana University School of Business.
Bloomington, IN. 
With Julius Hernandez and Shea Sullivan.
February 2021.

“Racist Robots?  A Visual Primer on Understanding Algorithmic Bias.” 
Midwest Associate of Legal Studies in Business/Midwest Business Administration Association Annual Conference.
  With Thomas Freeman, Ayin Monge-Morales, and Moises Morales. 
March 2020.

Art Exhibitions and Civic Forums

Art Exhibitions 

and Civic Forums
juried, grant-funded, and/or award-winning local, national, and international exhibitions

“All Bullets Shatter: Untold Stories of Gun Violence and Trauma.” Living Art Exhibition and Civic Forum. 
Minneapolis, MN and Online: May 2022.  With the Institute for Digital Humanity; Institute for Aesthetic
Advocacy; Guns Down, Love Up; Project Minnesota; The Digital Archive of Literacy Narratives (Ohio State,
Portland State, George State); and the Pittsburgh University Prison Writing Project.  

“Digital Rights Are Civil Rights: Race and Technology.”  Juried International Art Exhibition and Community
Education Event.  Minneapolis MN and Online: February 2021. With the Institute for Digital Humanity,
Institute for Aesthetic Advocacy, ACLU MN, Native Youth Arts Collective, and Councilman Steve Fletcher. 

“Contaminated.”  International Juried Art Exhibition and Civic Forum.  Minneapolis, MN and Online: May 2020.
With the Institute for Digital Humanity and Institute for Aesthetic Advocacy.  

“Medical Unreliability and Sick Girl Theory.”  Curated Cross-Cultural Art Exchange.  With Allison Baker, the
Institute for Digital Humanity, and the Institute for Aesthetic Advocacy.  St. Cloud Zine Fest.  St. Cloud, MN. 
February 2020.

“Sad Girls and Hopeful Women.”  Curated Cross-Cultural Art Exchange.  With the Institute for  Digital Humanity, 

and the Institute for Aesthetic Advocacy.  Twin Cities Zine Fest.  Minneapolis, MN.  September 2020.


“Hopeful Women.”  Student Art Installation on Christian Feminism.  Hamline University.  Saint Paul, MN.  Dec
2018.

“World Press Freedom Day: What Do You Have to Say,” Student Art Installation on Free Speech.  Hamline
University.  Saint Paul, MN.  April 2017.

“Y2K16.” Student Art Installation on Digital Ethics. Hamline University. Saint Paul, MN. December 2016.

“dronesTruck: Operation Como.” Student-Curated International Sound Art Exhibition. Saint Paul, MN. May 2016.

“School Violence: An Interdisciplinary Approach.” Student Art Installation on School Shootings.  Hamline University. Saint Paul, MN. December 2015.

COMPETITIVE ACADEMIC CONFERENCES

Competitive Academic
Conferences And Workshops:



“The Art of EMF Science: Aesthetics, Ethics, and Post-Digital Health Advocacy.”  Rhetoric of Health And 

Medicine Conference.  With Stephen Pedersen and Allison Baker.  Online: October 2020.  

“Rhetoric Versus the Robots II: The Ethics of Algorithmic Unreliability.”  International Society for the Study of
Narrative.  With Weston Cregut and Rebekah Winkel .New Orleans, LA.  March 2020.  

“Unsound Methods?” Panel and Multimedia Performance.  Rhetoric Society of America. With Cory Holding, Matt
Sumera, Josh Gumiela, Allison Baker, and the Institute for Aesthetic Advocacy. Minneapolis, MN, May 2018.

 “Sustaining Well-Being in an Electromagnetic Environment: A Rhetorical Analysis.” Brooke Wallington. 
National Conference on Undergraduate Research. Memphis, TN. April 2017.

 "Post-Postmodern Identity Performance and the Digital World, Or: How to Keep Up With the Kardashians.”
Hannah Kolbeck.  National Conference on Undergraduate Research. Spokane, WA.  April 2015.

“Pop Will Erase Itself: Music Criticism & Culture after the Digital Turn.”  Tommy Lawson. National Conference on Undergraduate Research. Spokane, WA.  April 2015.